Gospel 1:14

The only sound that Terry aware of was the rush of blood through his ears. His heart was pounding so hard that he was sure his shirt jumped with each beat. "Aw crap," he said belatedly. He hoped that the Agents thought he was referring to lost homework. If his data spike was responsible for this, then he must have left a trail burning so brightly across the security grids that even an idiot would be able to follow it.

Both Agents tried raising a response from their radios but all they were able to get was unbroken static. "You still there, kid?" one of them asked.

"Of course I am," Terry said testily, trying to cover his nervousness. "Where do you think I'd be?"

"Just making sure," the Agent said. "Stay put until we know what's going on."

"What should we do?" the other one asked.

"We stay here and guard the Child until we receive further orders," the first replied. "If this is another attack then the Pilots' safety is our top priority."

The sound of running footsteps echoed through the darkened corridor and there was a steely click as the Agents drew their guns. "Who there?" they shouted.

"Captain Al-Samarki, NERV security!" a voice called out. "I'm-!" the voice cut off as the emergency lights finally came on. A dark haired man in a tan security uniform cautiously stepped into view, his arms raised above his head. "About time the damn lights started working," he said as the Agents lowered their guns. "Whatever took the main systems down has also affected several of the secondaries fairly severely. The radio relay system is down, so security was forced to send runners to update our forces on the situation. It's been decided that this wasn’t the first strike from an unidentified enemy, but we're still trying to figure out just what the hell it was. The primary systems should be operational in less than three hours, but the geofront is being placed on full alert until all systems are back online." His message delivered, the lieutenant nodded curtly, then jogged off down the hall.

Terry disconnected the network cable while the agents were distracted, masking the action by unplugging the power cable. "So I'm stuck here until the power's restored?" Terry asked.

"We're stuck here until Major Katsuragi comes for you," one of the Agents growled irritably.

Terry didn't try to argue with him and began to prowl nervously around the room. He’d figured that he would've been in a lot of trouble if he'd been caught filching Rei’s address, but this… Terry found that he couldn't work any moisture into his mouth.

"He’s in there," one of the Agents said abruptly, causing Terry to nearly jump out of his skin. He hadn't expected someone to come for him this quickly. His sigh of relief when Rei entered the room was probably heard on the other side of the geofront.

"You are pleased to see me?" she asked.

"I’m always pleased to see you," Terry said, failing to keep a foolish grin from spreading across his face. "I would've been happy to see anybody, but I’m really glad that it’s you. It feels like I've been stuck down here for a year."

"You aren't permitted to leave?"

"As-," Terry began hotly but then forced his voice to a more level tone, "the 2^nd Child and I had an… altercation."

"I see," Rei said and Terry was sure that he heard a note of reproach in her voice. Her eyes were so intense that Terry felt like he was some strange organism laid out on a dissecting table in front of her and she was trying to decide where to begin cutting.

Her eyes locked him in place as she took a step forward. Without warning she tilted her head up and pressed her lips against his, causing him to take a couple of stumbling steps backwards. He heard someone by the door trying to muffle a laugh.

"You didn't find that agreeable?" Rei asked quizzically.

"Er, no," Terry said, flushing, "I mean, it wasn’t that I didn’t like it; you caught me by surprise."

"I see," Rei said with sudden understanding. "You require notice in advance of contact. A rose perhaps."

Rei’s attempt at humor caught Terry flatfooted. "Well, not necessarily that much forewarning," he said.

Instead of speaking, Rei took his free hand in hers and again surprised him by kissing him lightly.

Terry felt his face go hot and noticed that one of the Agents was chewing on his knuckle to keep from laughing. "You're being… ah, a bit more forward than usual." Terry said, trying to regain his equilibrium.

‘I'm experimenting," Rei replied in a tone so clinical that Terry winced.

"That’s a pretty unromantic way to put it," he said.

"What would be the ‘correct’ way to phrase it?" she asked.

Terry thought for a moment then smiled shyly. "Um… because you like it?"

"I suppose that is an adequate enough reason," Rei said, giving him a small, secretive smile.

"There you are!" an exasperated voice exclaimed. Dr. Ibuki entered the room, looking flustered and embarrassed by the scene that she'd walked in on. "What do you think you're doing?" she demanded of Rei.

"Nurse, or guard," Rei replied cryptically, staring at Dr. Ibuki with an unreadable expression.

"Please Rei, don’t make this difficult. I have to keep an eye on you."

"Why?" Terry asked.

"The Commander wants Dr. Ibuki to monitor my condition," Rei said, keeping her eyes on the older woman.

"Why?" Terry asked again.

Rei shrugged carefully. "The Commander’s reasons are his own," she said. "Dr. Ibuki, I can assure you that I'm fine. Your presence is no longer required."

"But the Commander ordered-."

"That’s all right, Maya," a new voice interrupted, "I can keep them out of trouble for you."

"Sempai!" Maya exclaimed as a blond woman in a lab coat stepped past the agents and entered the room. Terry knew that he'd seen her before, but her name escaped him.

"Youkoso kohai," the woman said pleasantly. Terry didn't recognize the words but the tone was fond, and it made Maya flush slightly in embarrassment.

"What are you doing here?" Maya asked.

She had a folder tucked under one arm and handed it to Maya. "I finished with the latest data on the system before the power went out. You’ll want to go over it as soon as possible."

"Yes ma’am," Maya said, then cast a reluctant glance at Rei. "But -."

"I could make that an order," she interrupted. "I am your superior and you have been given some rather important information to go over. Kaereru kohai." Terry thought he understood the first word; it was a fondly meant ‘get going,’ or something very similar.

"Y-yes ma’am," Maya said, tucking the folder under one arm and hurrying from the room.

"I don't believe that we've ever been formally introduced," she said, turning to Terry. "I'm Dr. Ritsuko Akagi."

"Pleased to meet you," Terry said, shaking her hand. He didn't feel quite comfortable in her presence. Although this was the first time he'd spoken with her, he remembered her from the assassination attempt on the Commander. She'd seemed despondent then, almost despairing, but now she almost exuded an air of near manic irascibility.

Ritsuko reached into her jacket and pulled out a small rectangular pack. She pulled out what looked like a cigarette, unraveled on end and stuck it in her mouth. "Want one," she asked, offering the pack to Rei. "They’re chocolate," Ritsuko said mischievously, noting Terry’s dangling jaw. "I didn’t have…access to real cigarettes for a while, which more or less broke me of the habit. Some addictions die harder than others though, and even though I kicked the nicotine, I still craved something to work my teeth on. Want one?"

Terry was saved from answering by the sound of footsteps pounding down the hall. "I was told Dr. Akagi came this way!" a voice shouted at the Agents. "Have you seen her?"

"She’s in there," one of them replied, and a man in a security uniform dashed into the room, panting heavily and dripping with sweat. "Dr. Akagi! You have to come right away! Something's wrong with the experiment!"

The cigarette snapped between Ritsuko’s teeth. ‘Experiment’ was the label used for Eve whenever mentioning her risked a breach of security. "I’ll be right there," she said tersely. The man turned to run back out but Ritsuko put a restraining hand on his shoulder. "We can walk. The world won’t end if we take a few extra minutes."

He started to protest, but closed his mouth at the look Ritsuko gave him.

"There’s no reason to abandon our dignity over a matter like this." Ritsuko hoped that she was the only one who noticed the tremble in her voice as she spoke. The guard swallowed nervously, but walked beside her as they left the room.

They continued to walk until the corridor around them was empty. "Now," Ritsuko said, abandoning all attempts at keeping her voice calm, "we run."

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"It seems like entire geofront is stopping here," one of the Agents said after Ritsuko left. "A thousand yen says that Major Katsuragi is the next to come by."

The other one snorted. "Since she's the one person we actually want to see, a thousand yen says that you're wrong."

Terry sighed and tried to ignore the Agents as he dropped into his chair. Rei sat in the other chair, set her cigarette down on the table, and seemed to forget about it. He could feel her eyes on him but she remained silent.

"Why did you pursue me so obsessively?" she asked suddenly.

Terry winced. "Are you sure that was the word you wanted to use?"

"You pursued me even when I showed no interest towards you in return. I believe in that context, obsess is the proper word."

"Well," Terry said, trying to sound confident, "it worked, didn't it? You're returning my interest now." When she didn't return his smile, he sighed and looked down at the table. "Yeah, maybe obsessive is the right word. What it all started with was a crush. Since my dad headed up the NERV R&D facility in Australia, I ended up receiving a lot of incidental exposure to all things Eva. One day, attached to some paperwork he'd left lying around, I saw of picture of this incredible girl. I'd never seen a girl as beautiful as she was, and the look in her eyes was… intense. I fell head over heels, just from that one picture. I'm sure you could guess who it was."

"The 1^st Child."

"Yes, you," Terry said and leaned towards her across the table.

She drew back. "Did I meet your expectations?" she asked in a tone that was noticeably chill.

"You're nothing like I was expecting," Terry responded, puzzled by what he could have done to offend her.

"I see."

"I mean you're better," he added quickly. "I had no idea what you were really like, so I tried to imagine what kind of person you were. I'm glad that you're the girl in the picture, and not the one I had inside my head. "

Rei sat perfectly still for a moment, not even seeming to breath. "And if I wasn't?"

"Wasn't what?"

"The girl in the picture."

"Then, I'd still be glad that you're the one I met." Terry paused to try and collect his thoughts. "That was your picture, right? I'd feel pretty bad if the one I'd been pining after all this time turned out to be your evil twin or something." He laughed awkwardly.

"Where did you meet the 2^nd Child?" she asked suddenly, giving him a look that made him feel like an onion. Peel away each layer and see what's underneath.

"It’s a long story," Terry said, wondering why she'd decided to ask about that, and wishing that she hadn't.

"I believe that I would like to hear it," Rei said, folding her hands in front of her and looking as though she wasn't planning on moving anytime soon.

"I'm not sure where I should start," Terry said, trying to think of some way of dissuading her from following that particular line of questioning.

"At the beginning," Rei said, her eyes remaining on his face. Peel, peel, peel.

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Ritsuko was forced to stop as she approached the third cage. The lighting had failed to activate in the hall in front of her, filling it with near impenetrable darkness. "Why haven’t the emergency systems come on-line?" she demanded, breathing heavily.

"Since this cage has supposedly been mothballed it was disconnected from the emergency grids. When the primary systems went down it wasn't connected to any of the backups."

"What happened to Eve?" Ritsuko asked, trying to keep the worry out of her voice.

"I'm not sure. Unit-04's pilot started screaming after the power went out. We could hear her, since the Eva was supplying its own power for the speakers, but without electricity for the audio inputs we couldn't respond. I was sent to get you." He paused significantly. "They sent someone else to inform the Commander."

The doors to the cage had been forced open and everyone in the cage was clustered up on balcony. Several work lights provided a small amount of illumination but they did little against the darkness that filled the rest of the cage.

"What happened?" Ritsuko demanded, but before anyone could answer her, she heard Eve.

"It’s dark, it’s so dark," her voice sobbed from the speaker. "There’s nothing, it’s all gone. I’m scared, Mother, I’m so scared!"

"Eve! Can you hear me!" Ritsuko shouted, hoping that Eve would respond to her voice.

"What should we do?" asked one of the guards milling about the balcony.

"Get everyone out of here," Ritsuko ordered. She was sure that she knew what the Commander’s decision would be. "Get everyone away from the cage."

"What about security?"

"I doubt that there’s going to be anything left in here to keep secret in another few minutes," Ritsuko said grimly.

The guard blinked in confusion but the blood drained from his face as he realized what she meant. "Everyone out!" he shouted and started hustling techs towards the door.

Ritsuko grabbed one of the techs before they could leave. "I need a full diagnostics board and independent power supply." As the tech began frantically digging through an equipment case, she turned to the guard who'd brought her. "I need you to go to my office. There's a locker in the back corner. Bring me the wetsuit and tankless rebreather that’s in there. There should also be a micro headset. Bring that, too." She didn’t need to tell him to hurry. He took off running as if his life depended on it. His didn’t. Eve's did.

With the guard's flashlight, she was able to see that Unit-04 was in its usual place against the wall. She needed to find some way to get to the entry plug. Normally she would ride the transport arm, but it was useless without power.

The tech returned with the equipment that Ritsuko had requested, but she grabbed his arm before he could go. "Get all the batteries that you can find and connect them."

He cast an obvious glance at the door, "But-?"

"Do it," she ordered, and pried the cover panel off of the console with a discarded screwdriver. She searched the exposed board for a moment, then began pulling out wires, noticing the light decreasing as the tech pulled the batteries out of the worklights, until all that remained was the guard's flashlight, and the worklight above where she was working.

The tech wrapped the gathered batteries together with electrical tape, and connected them with bits of copper wiring. "Will this work?" he asked, licking his lips nervously.

"It'll do," Ritsuko replied tersely. "You can go," she ordered, noticing the tech's anxious glances at the door. He grabbed the guard's flashlight and disappeared down the darkened hallway almost before she finished the sentence, nearly hitting the guard coming in the other direction.

"I found everything you asked for," he said, but Ritsuko ignored him, concentrating on attaching two wires to the jury-rigged mass of batteries. "Eve!" she all but shouted.

Eve stopped sobbing. "Mother, is that you?"

"Eve, listen carefully, I don't have much time. I need you to lie down on the floor of the cage."

"I can't feel anything, everything's gone. Please mother, help me."

"Don't worry Eve, I'm here. Just-."

"You're fading, Mother, I can't hear you. Mother? Mother!"

"It's all right Eve, I'm here." The girl gave no indication that she'd heard, and Ritsuko disgustedly tossed aside the batteries. A sound from within the cage made her look up and she saw Unit-04 slowly kneel, then lay upon the floor. She sighed in relief. Eve had heard that part at least.

The balcony was empty when she turned around. The guard was gone, but he'd left the items she'd requested. She let her lab coat drop and quickly stripped out of her skirt and blouse. The wetsuit was a tighter fit then she remembered. "Too many chocolate cigarettes," she admonished herself as zipped it closed.

She put on the headset, adjusting its fit so that it lay flush with her mouth and ear, then turned it on, setting the transmission frequency to that of Unit 04. Its transmitter didn't have enough power to reach Eve through the Eva's armor, so she'd have to wait until she was inside of the entry plug before Eve would be able to hear her.

The rebreather fit perfectly over her head, despite the headset and she activated it, listening to the faint hum of the filters as they began to work. The first few breaths tasted stale but the filters quickly cleared and began supplying her with filtered oxygen. The rebreather was designed to work underwater, stripping breathable O₂ from the surrounding H₂O, and she hoped that it would operate just as well in LCL.

Her muscles ached by the time she reached the bottom of the access ladder that stretched down from the balcony, all the more because she'd only been able to use one arm, the other tightly clutching the diagnostics board and worklight.

She approached the Eva cautiously. It hadn't moved, but Ritsuko's stomach twisted with anxiety each time that she heard Eve's cry through her headset. Just beneath the slope of the brain case was an emergency hatch that allowed access to the entry plug, to be used in case the cover plate below the neck was either damaged or inoperable. The bolt turned with difficulty, and when Ritsuko pulled it away, strings of serum stuck to it, like it had been a scab that she had peeled away. It opened into a small access lock that was barely high enough to stand. It's purpose was to cycle away LCL before the pilot got out of the Evangelion; Ritsuko hoped that its pumps would still work when she tried to get out. If not, the pressure would prevent her from reopening the outer hatch.

"Eve?" she asked, but the girl/Eva failed to respond. The headset wasn't strong enough to reach her, even at this distance. She opened the next hatch and the chamber immediately flooded with LCL. Except that it wasn't LCL like she was used to. What surrounded her was thicker, closer to red than amber, and slightly cloudy, although she couldn't see any particulate. She swam to the tube's end, prying open the access panel next to the hatch. Both it and the leads to the diagnostics board were sealed, keeping them free of contaminants until the two were brought together.

She instructed the board to give her a report on the Evangelion's status, although she had to look carefully at the results it returned to find out was actual damage and not the result of the merging of Eve's two bodies. According to it, the entry plug along with the primary computer system and several critical subsystems had been destroyed completely by an unidentified biological phage.

Bit by bit, Ritsuko pieced together what had happened to Eve. A sudden electrical surge had overloaded the Eva's compensators and flooded it with raw voltage. Although the plug's shell had protected Eve's inner body, her greater body's biological systems had been completely paralyzed and her mechanical ones overloaded. Fear twisted Ritsuko's stomach as she tried to determine if the damage was only temporary. Because of the way that the girl/Eva had merged, it would be almost impossible to undertake conventional repairs.

What puzzled her was where the power surge had come from. The Evangelion's energy consumption was low enough that it was run entirely off of its S² engine. As Ritsuko's eyes traveled down the list of mechanical subsystems, she noticed something that shouldn't be there. The Eva's hard-line transmitter was listed as Offline/Standby but it shouldn't have been there at all. The hard-line transmitter gave the plug's occupant a line of communication with anyone outside the Evangelion even if the Eva itself had lost power. Since there was no one in a dummy plug to communicate with, Unit-04 had never had one.

Ritsuko called up the schematic and inhaled sharply. She'd found the breach. In the middle of the Eva's spine was a concentrated knot of biomechanics. Eve had somehow caused her greater body to grow an interface bundle that could penetrate the wall of the cage, and tap into both energy and data lines. When the power had failed, it had tried to draw more by tapping into additional power lines. The small surge generated by the electrical system's last gasp had been magnified, scrambling the Evangelion's systems, depriving Eve of her sight, hearing, and awareness of the outside world. Leaving her with nothing, in the dark.

Ritsuko moved to the hatch leading into the plug itself. The bolt refused to budge no matter how hard she tried to turn it. It infuriated her to be stopped so close to the plug, and it tore at her to hear Eve's cries but be unable to respond. In frustration she wrenched at the hatch, falling backwards as it came apart beneath her hands. Once she steadied herself, she examined the piece of metal in her hands. It had eroded almost completely and the entrance to the plug that had lain beneath it was pore-like, organic.

The rebreather's filters began to whine as they strained to pull air from the LCL.

"Eve?" Ritsuko asked tentatively.

"M-mother?" Eve's voice quivered. "I'm so scared."

"It's all right, I'm here." The interior of the entry plug was almost completely organic and quivered and pulsed under Ritsuko's hand. "What happened?"

Eve sounded like she was about to begin crying again. "I'm sorry, mother, I-I lied to you. You told me that you limited my data access because you were afraid that I'd hurt myself, but I didn't want to be limited. I broke into the geofront's data system, but something happened. There was a power surge, and it… hurt my greater body. I couldn't see anymore, or hear, or feel. It was like someone had taken my greater body away." She started to cry again. "I'm so scared."

"It's all right, Eve," Ritsuko said soothingly. She pushed further into the plug and could see Eve's inner body ahead of her. "I'm here now." Ritsuko's throat burned as the air in the rebreather began to turn acrid. The filters were burning out. She carefully slipped past the veins that radiated from Eve's inner body to the walls of the plug, and tenderly stroked her cheek.

"Is that you, mother?"

"Yes, Eve, it is."

"I-I've never felt anything with my inner body before." Eve trembled beneath her fingers and Ritsuko felt the Eva quiver around her in response. "Please mother, don't let go. I'm afraid." There was a wet tearing sound and Eve tore her arms free of the sides the plug, closing them around Ritsuko's back.

"Don't worry, it'll be all right," Ritsuko said, returning the embrace. She tried to say more, but the air in the rebreather burned her throat and she began coughing.

"Dr. Akagi." Ritsuko jumped as Gendo's voice came out of the speaker in her ear.

"W-what?"

"What is your appraisal of the situation?"

Ritsuko felt Eve's arms tighten. "Everything is under control," she said.

"Very well. I will be waiting for your report."

Ritsuko tried to reply but didn't have the breath to speak. "Eve," she gasped, "I have to go."

"Please, mother," Eve begged, "stay with me. If you go I'll be deaf again, I won't be able to feel you anymore. How will I even know if you're still there and I'm not here alone?"

Ritsuko was coughing so hard that she could barely speak. "You have to let me go, Eve. I can't make you better from in here. I have to go to fix your greater body."

"I'm afraid, mother."

"Don't worry Eve, it'll be all right. I'll keep you safe."

Ritsuko felt Eve reluctantly loosen her hold, and as soon as she was free, she tore against the resistance of the LCL, trying to reach the access tube. Her throat felt as if it were on fire and black spots drifted in front of her eyes as she forced the hatch to the access lock shut. For several agonizing seconds the only sound that she heard was her own rasping cough, but the lock's pumps came fitfully to life, draining the LCL. She practically hurled the outer hatch open and crawled onto the surface of the Eva, tearing the rebreather from her face and gasping as clean, cool air flooded into her lungs.

She half climbed, half slid down the Eva, and stumbled over to the access ladder before collapsing. She stared vehemently at the rungs as she gulped in air. There was no way that she could climb back up those. As if in response to her thoughts, there was a low hum of machinery returning to life and the lights came back on, flickering fitfully at first then shining steadily. Ritsuko hauled herself to her feet and called the lift down from the balcony, leaning wearily against the wall as she waited.

Gendo was waiting when the elevator reached the balcony. "Do you think it can be repaired?" he asked. He was intent on the Evangelion, his back to her.

"It might take a little while, but I'm sure that we'll be able to return her to operational status."

"So long as it can be fixed," Gendo said and turned. Vertigo rocked him and it was with an effort that he kept himself from swaying. Ritsuko's hair was brown for barely a centimeter above her scalp but even that centimeter increased the resemblance to her mother by ten-fold. "You've stopped dying your hair." He forced his voice to remain steady.

She shrugged. "I haven't had time to see a stylist," she said sarcastically.

Gendo felt the first tendrils of panic tug at him. He did not feel regret for Naoko, but as he looked at Ritsuko, he wasn't sure if he would be able to stand it if whenever he saw her he also saw her mother staring out at him. He purposely curled his lip into a sneer, "It suits you."

Ritsuko's expression was neutral but her voice dripped with acid. "I'm glad that you approve. You know just how much your opinion means to me."

Gendo opened his mouth but Ritsuko spoke before he could get anything out. "Yes, yes, I know," she said, waving one hand flippantly. "You'll want a full report as soon as possible. I'll need you to send everyone who was assigned the cage back though. Giving their anal retentiveness for secrecy, Section Two probably stashed them in a closet somewhere."

Gendo's mouth snapped shut but he gave her a single, sharp nod before turning on his heel. "Very well," he said as he left. Ritsuko waited until his footsteps had faded into the distance before she began to change out of the wetsuit.

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Rei tapped her pen irritably against a blank page of her diary. She was upset, upset because of him. Her emotions were unsettled because of what he had done to her. She was not used to being so affected by another person and her fingers shook slightly as she began to write, recreating her conversation with Terry.

"At the beginning," she'd said in response to Terry's question.

"Well," Terry started reluctantly, "to start from the very beginning, I was born on September 17, 2001. My dad and mom were both researchers at the 1^st Branch in Germany, although my dad was originally from Australia. My dad spoke mostly English, so I learned how to speak that from him." He sighed and looked at the ceiling. "It wasn't that much of a childhood. All the children from the 1^st Branch went to the same school and I suppose that we copped a sort of elitist attitude, since our parents were supposed to be big shot researchers. I told you that my dad went back to Australia and then how I ended up here…" He trailed off.

"There's more to it than that. You said nothing about Pilot Soryu."

Terry gave her a sharp glance, but then went on. "I knew her vaguely from school, but even then she was an arrogant little git, and thought that she was to smart to play with the other little kids. Our mothers were both involved with the same project and one day there was an accident. I… don't know what really happened, but it killed my mom, and drove hers insane. She hung herself a little while later. Asuka blamed my mom, and by extension, me for it." He paused, his voice was tense. "She couldn't take it out on my mom so she took it out on me. If she saw me, she'd start screaming at me, calling me a 'bastard' and blaming me for taking her mama away." He parted the hair on one side of his head and Rei saw a scare that ran almost from his temple to his ear. "Once I lost my temper and started screaming back at her. She threw me into a table and split my scalp. After that we only saw each other one more time before I left for Australia." Terry curled his lip into a sneer. "It didn't go well. I'd gotten over all that when I was asked to come to Tokyo-3, but she obviously hadn't."

"Really?"

"Yes, really." He was becoming angry. "I had tried to put what she did to me behind me, but she was ready to dig it all up again."

"Why did it make you so mad when she called you a bastard?"

Terry gave her a sharp glance and his fingers began to drum against the table. "Because I am. My dad was originally married to a woman from Australia. It was a mistake, but they didn't realize that until it was too late. They didn't get along too well and fought a lot. When he got the job with GEHIRN she didn't want to move to Germany and stayed behind in Australia for a while after he went to Europe. When she finally arrived in Germany, my mom was already in her third trimester, and she only stayed in Germany long enough to have the marriage annulled. If you dug up my original birth certificate, you'd see that the name read 'Terrence Soboul.' I didn't become St. John until a couple of months later."

"And it causes you discomfort to be reminded of that fact?"

"Yeah," Terry replied irritably, "I think that you could say that."

Rei found that as he spoke his attention seemed to turn inward as if the retelling of this wrong occupied all of his concentration. It fascinated her that it had only taken a couple of questions to shift his attitude from fondness to hostility, and he himself didn't seem to recognize the change that he'd undergone. It gave her a sense of power.

"I've given you my life story, so why don't you tell me something about yourself?" Terry said abruptly.

Rei hadn't expected the conversation to turn this way. "I don't think that there's much to say."

"You've been alive for fourteen years, something must have happened in that time. Shinji told me that he thought you were an orphan; what happened to your parents?"

Rei felt a surge of annoyance at his presumption, although a part of her tried to distance herself from the emotion. She could affect his mindset with a single question, he could affect her as well. "Pilot Ikari is correct. I don't have any parents. My progenitors were affiliated with NERV and after I was born I became its ward."

"NERV? Didn't you have any relatives that could take care of you?"

"No," she stated sharply, finding it difficult to keep the irritability that she was feeling out of her voice.

"So you didn't have any real family at all? If someone asked you who your parents were, you told them NERV?"

"I suppose that the Commander was nominally my guardian. He knew my progenitors and I became NERV's ward not long after he lost his wife. I suppose some might consider me something of a replacement for her."

"Ugh, that sounds quasi-Oedipal."

Rei bristled at the comment. "Maybe, or maybe not. Humans are strange creatures."

Terry shivered. "I don't like it when you talk like that, Rei. When you say things like that, you sound like consider yourself something other than human." He reached across the table and took her hand in his. "Sometimes you're so cold… it's like you’re a ghost and even though I'm talking to you, you're not really there. You talk about yourself like you don't matter."

"Do I?" she asked sharply

"Of course you do. You matter to a lot of people. You matter to Misato, to Shinji, to the Commander." He didn't seem to see her flinch at the Commander's name. He went on softly. "You matter to me. So why do you act like you don't?"

" Maybe I dislike the emotions that are a part of being 'liked.'"

"What would that be? You don't like feeling liked? Why wouldn't you like knowing that you matter to others?"

"Because maybe I don't."

Terry looked shocked. "How can you say something like that? You're a person that others care about, not some machine that can be popped off of the assembly as soon as you need another one. You matter."

Rei tore her hand free from his and stood. "You make too many assumptions," she said, not bothering to hide the anger in her voice. She stormed out of the room but when Terry had tried to follow the Agents held him back.

It had actually felt good too physically express her anger, bringing her feet down hard enough that the soles of her shoes slapped audibly against the floor, storming up flights of stairs, shoving open the locker room door, then slamming her locker door after she retrieved her diary. She'd always felt a small amount of disdain when she'd observed others perform such expositions, but now she thought she understood some of the reason behind it.

The tip of the pen tore through the page as she finished the entry. Even the memory of the event was enough to restore her anger. That she could recall, her previous incarnation had only felt intense emotion on a few rare occasions, and even those had been nothing like this. As she examined the anger that still sang in her head, she decided that she'd lied to Terry. She liked this emotion, all emotions and she wanted to experience them again.

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Suiko's feet protruded from beneath Melchior's raised case, a mass of cables twining around one ankle. "Did that do anything?" she asked.

"Power has been restored to B-Floor," Shigeru reported.

"Power grid has gone down on D-Floor," Makoto said, right on his heels.

"Try it now," Suiko said.

"Power to D-Floor has been restored and…" Makoto paused for a minute to consult a screen, "main elevators are offline."

"Damn it," Suiko swore, "where the hell is Dr. Ibuki?" That was the fifth time she'd asked that question and she knew better than to expect an answer by now. With a sigh she changed the inputs that her work board was connected then typed in a set of commands, crossing her fingers as she hit the ENTER key. "How's that?" she asked.

Her only response was a protracted silence and she directed a glare through the supercomputer's side. "Well?" No one answered, but she was sure she heard someone trying to stifle a laugh. "What?" she demanded irritably.

"M-main elevators are back on-line," Shigeru began, but then broke down into helpless laughter, "b-but you somehow managed to put a security feed from one of the women's restrooms on the main screen."

Makoto whistled. "Looks like someone decided to have a romantic rendezvous while the power was down. Damn, I didn't know that panties could come in that color."

"Hey," Shigeru said, "I think I know those two! It's Suiko's fiancé and… Commander Fuyutsuki!"

"Ahem."

The blood drained from Shigeru's face. "One of them is standing behind me, right?"

Makoto nodded.

"It's not Suiko's fiancé, is it?"

Makoto shook his head.

"Commander, sir," Shigeru said without turning around, "I didn't hear you come in."

"Obviously," Fuyutsuki said coldly. "Lieutenant Enoto, what is that on the main screen?"

"The ladies room, I think." She typed a few more commands into her board and the image on the screen dissolved into static. "Repairs are proving more difficult to undertake than originally anticipated."

"How soon until the MAGI are back online?"

"I don't know. We've haven't been unable to restart the MAGI, so we're attempting to bring the systems back online piecemeal, with very mixed results. This would be going a lot faster if someone could find Dr. Ibuki, or better yet, Dr. Akagi."

"Dr. Akagi is occupied elsewhere. I will see to it that Dr. Ibuki will take over the efforts to restart the MAGI." He turned towards where Balthasar sat with its innards exposed. "How is your work progressing, Major?"

Misato winced. She'd hoped that he'd forget she was there. She straightened and stepped back from the techs that surrounded the computer. "Not well. We've so far been unable to determine either the identity of the intruders, or where they were able to tap into the MAGI. The security systems didn't even notice that the MAGI had been breached until both intruders uploaded an unidentified program to the system. We can only assume that they failed at whatever they were attempting because as soon as their programs uploaded, they caused a processor cascade that crashed the MAGI. The current theory is that both intruders were working independently and unaware of the others presence." Misato hoped that she didn't look half as terrified as she felt. It didn't look like the security systems had been able to track her down before they crashed, but as the techs examined the security and system logs, she kept expecting to see MISATO DID IT appear in big neon letters.

It was bad enough that she'd been assigned to oversee the efforts to track down those responsible for the 'attack' on the MAGI, but it had tied her stomach in a knot to learn that it hadn't been security that had found her, but another intruder into the system. She'd hacked into the MAGI with the intention of taking herself out of the Commander's hands, but by doing so she might have set herself square into the hands of someone else.

"Did you resolve the situation between Pilots Soryu and St. John?" Fuyutsuki asked.

Misato bit her tongue. In all the chaos she'd forgotten them completely. "Ah, I decided that it would be best to let the two of them cool off for a while." She made a show of looking at her watch. "They've been cooped up in the geofront for the better part of two days. With your permission, I'd like to take them home, Shinji and Rei too."

"The 1^st Child doesn't need to leave the geofront at this time," the Deputy Commander stated. "As for the 3^rd, he will remain in the medical ward under observation until his mental state has been deemed suitable for release."

Misato trembled. She'd made herself forget the reason that she'd put herself into a drunken stupor the previous night. "I understand."

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Terry propped his feet up on the table, tilting his chair back precariously. "Do you know what time it is?" he asked.

"Three hours past when we were supposed to get off shift," one of the Agents replied.

"When was that?"

"Three hours ago."

Terry grunted sourly and let his chair fall back to the floor. He'd spent a long time brooding, trying to figure out why what he'd said had upset Rei so much. As he ceaselessly racked his brains for an answer, brooding had turned to boredom, and Terry had started a contest with the Agents to see who could be more annoying. He'd figured that having grown up with three younger sisters would've given him an edge, but apparently the Agents had younger siblings too, because they'd matched him point for point.

"Damn it," one of them swore suddenly under his breath.

"That's a thousand yen you owe me," the other said.

"Figures," the first muttered, then out loud, "He's in there, Major."

"Thank you for keeping an eye on him," Misato replied.

Terry gulped. She sounded upset. Really upset. He'd expected that when the consequences caught up with him he'd end up really biting a bullet, but he hadn't expected it to come from Misato. She stopped in front of the door and crossed her arms over her chest.

"You're mad, aren’t you," Terry asked.

"Yeah, you could say that I'm mad," she said out loud, but in her mind, at myself, for neglecting the ones who need me, for trying to lose myself in a bottle instead of facing up to my problems.

"I'm in trouble, aren't I?"

"Big trouble," Misato confirmed.

Terry couldn't imagine why she was drawing this out. He was finished as a pilot; he knew it, she knew it, why beat it around the bush? He sighed. "Let's get this over with."

"You're not getting off that easily. You, Asuka and I are going to have a little talk."

Terry's jaw dropped open in astonishment. "That's it? We're just going to talk?"

"What, did you think I was going to shoot the two of you? Unless you've done something else that you're not telling me about? You weren't the one that shut down the geofront, were you?" Misato forced a weak smile at the joke.

Terry smiled weakly in return. He couldn't believe it, but somehow no one had figured out that crashing the MAGI was his fault. "Course not. Dealing with that red-headed git is punishment enough."

Misato's expression darkened and before he could move her hand closed around his ear. "You bet the two of you are going to deal with each other," Misato said as she hauled him out into the corridor by his ear. "You're going to deal even if I have to handcuff the two of you together and stuff you in a closet."